Monday, September 06, 2010

Under Obamacare, the folks in Washington are given the task of finding ways to make health care more affordable. Medicare Chief Donald Berwick, a fan of Britain's failing National Health Service, has been given $10 billion to find new ways to save dollars spent under the Medicare system. “I am romantic about the NHS,’’ Berwick said in the 2008 speech marking the 60th anniversary of England’s National Health Service. “I love it.’’

Berwick is using a tool that Congress included in the new health care law: an innovation center with $10 billion to spend over the next decade in a quest for the best ways of improving care and reducing costs.

The launch of the test sites by the end of 2011 is just a first step in changing the fundamental ways the government pays physicians and hospitals. Over 10 years, the innovation center’s work is expected to save $1.3 billion

Perhaps it is just me, but the math doesn't seem to work out.

But there is a potential silver lining here.

Unless he can win over some GOP senators, who voted uniformly against the health care law, Berwick won’t be able to win a 60-vote confirmation in the Senate and will be forced to leave office when his recess appointment expires at the end of 2011.

This guy is dangerous. Let's hope he does even less damage to Medicare over the next year than Obama has to the economy in less than 2 years.

“You can have all the authority in the law, but if you don’t have support in Congress, you are going to have trouble with your funding, you are going to have trouble with the way you are treated at hearings,’’ said a Berwick supporter, James Roosevelt Jr., chief executive of the Tufts Health Plan

Under Obamacare, the folks in Washington are given the task of finding ways to make health care more affordable. Medicare Chief Donald Berwick, a fan of Britain's failing National Health Service, has been given $10 billion to find new ways to save dollars spent under the Medicare system. “I am romantic about the NHS,’’ Berwick said in the 2008 speech marking the 60th anniversary of England’s National Health Service. “I love it.’’

Berwick is using a tool that Congress included in the new health care law: an innovation center with $10 billion to spend over the next decade in a quest for the best ways of improving care and reducing costs.

The launch of the test sites by the end of 2011 is just a first step in changing the fundamental ways the government pays physicians and hospitals. Over 10 years, the innovation center’s work is expected to save $1.3 billion

Perhaps it is just me, but the math doesn't seem to work out.

But there is a potential silver lining here.

Unless he can win over some GOP senators, who voted uniformly against the health care law, Berwick won’t be able to win a 60-vote confirmation in the Senate and will be forced to leave office when his recess appointment expires at the end of 2011.

This guy is dangerous. Let's hope he does even less damage to Medicare over the next year than Obama has to the economy in less than 2 years.

“You can have all the authority in the law, but if you don’t have support in Congress, you are going to have trouble with your funding, you are going to have trouble with the way you are treated at hearings,’’ said a Berwick supporter, James Roosevelt Jr., chief executive of the Tufts Health Plan